SAMUEL  G.  BLYTHE 


The  Old  Game 


WWY.  OF  GALIF.  U**ARY,  LOS 


The  Old  Game 

A  Retrospect  After  Three 

and  a  Half  Years  on 

the  W^ater-wagon 


B 


Samuel  G.  Blythe 

Author  of  "The  Price  of  Place," 
"Cutting  It  Out"  etc.  etc. 


New  York 
George  H.  Doran  Company 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


The  Old  Game 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY 9 

II.    A  BACKWARD  GLANCE  FROM  A 

HILLOCK  OF  ABSTINENCE.  .    15 

III.  GETTING  THE  ALCOHOL  OUT  OF 

ONE'S  SYSTEM 21 

IV.  THOSE  WHO  HAVE  SUFFERED 

IN  VAIN  29 

V.    A  THIRSTY  NATION'S  NEED.  . .  37 

VI.    THE    JEERS    OF    THE    SMART 

ALECS 45 

VII.    MORE  TIME  FOR  OTHER  THINGS  51 


2129S34 


The  Old  Game 


CONTENTS— Continued 


PAGE 

VIII.    LEISURE  PUT  TO  GOOD  USES..   59 

IX.    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  TOLL   IT 

TAKES  67 


The  Old  Game 


I:  Introductory 


The  Old  Game 


Introductory 

IN  a  few  minutes  it  will  be  three  years 
and  a  half  since  I  have  taken  a  drink. 
In  six  years,  six  months,  and  a  few  min- 
utes it  will  be  ten  years.  Then  I  shall  be- 
gin to  feel  I  have  some  standing  among  the 
chaps  who  have  quit.  Three  years  and  a 
half  seems  quite  a  period  of  abstinence  to 
me,  but  I  am  constantly  running  across  men 
who  have  been  on  the  wagon  for  five  and 
ten  and  twelve  and  twenty  years;  and  I 
know,  when  it  comes  to  merely  not  taking 
any,  I  am  a  piker  as  yet.  However,  I  have 
well-grounded  hopes.  The  fact  is,  a  drink 
could  not  be  put  into  me  except  with  the 
aid  of  an  anesthetic  and  a  funnel;  but,  for 
all  that,  I  am  no  bigot. 

I  look  at  this  non-drinking  determination 
of  mine  as  a  purely  individual  proposition. 
Let  me  get  the  stage  set  properly  at  the 


10         The  Old  Game 

beginning  of  my  remarks.  I  have  no  ad- 
vice to  offer  and  no  counsel  to  give.  Most 
of  my  best  friends  drink  and  I  never  have 
said  and  never  shall  say  them  nay.  It  is 
up  to  them — not  up  to  me.  I  have  no 
prejudices  in  the  matter.  If  my  friends 
want  to  drink  I  am  for  that — for  them. 

These  things  are  mentioned  to  establish 
my  status  in  the  premises.  I  have  no  ser- 
mon to  preach — no  warning  to  convey.  I 
have  no  desire  to  impress  my  convictions  on 
the  subject  of  drinking  liquor  on  any  per- 
son whatever.  That  is  not  my  mission.  So 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  all  persons  are  here- 
by given  full  and  free  permission  to  eat, 
drink  and  be  merry  to  such  extent  as  they 
may  prescribe  for  themselves.  I  set  no 
limit,  suggest  no  reforms,  urge  no  cutting 
down  or  cutting  out.  Go  to  it — and  peace 
be  with  you!  And  for  an  absolute  tee- 
totaler I  reckon  I  buy  as  many  drinks  for 
others  as  any  one  in  my  class. 

Pardon  me  for  inserting  these  puny  de- 
tails in  what  I  have  to  say.  Triflingly 
personal  as  they  are  they  seem  necessary  in 
order  to  establish  my  viewpoint.  So  far  as 


Introductory  11 

drinking  is  concerned  I  look  at  it  with  a 
mind  that  is  open  and  tolerant — except  in 
one  instance.  That  one  instance  concerns 
myself  personally  and  individually.  My 
mind  is  closed  and  intolerant  in  my  own 
case.  I  have  quit — and  quit  forever;  but 
that  does  not  make  me  go  round  urging 
others  to  quit,  or  preaching  at  them,  or  try- 
ing to  reform  them.  They  can  reform  or 
not,  as  they  dad-blamed  please.  To  be  sure 
I  have  my  own  interior  ideas  on  what  some 
of  them  should  do;  but  I  never  have  and 
never  shall  do  anything  with  those  ideas 
but  keep  them  closely  to  myself. 

Therefore,  to  resume:  In  a  few  minutes 
it  will  be  three  years  and  a  half  since  I 
have  taken  a  drink.  There  is  no  more 
alcohol  in  my  system  than  there  is  in  a 
glass  of  spring  water.  The  thought  of 
putting  alcohol  into  my  system  is  as  absent 
from  my  mind  as  is  the  thought  of  putting 
benzine  into  it,  or  gasoline,  or  taking  a 
swig  of  shoe-polish.  It  never  occurs  to 
me.  The  whole  thing  is  out  of  my  psychol- 
ogy. My  palate  has  forgotten  how  it  tastes. 
My  stomach  has  forgotten  how  it  feels. 


12         The  Old  Game 

My  head  has  forgotten  how  it  exhilarates. 
The  next-morning  fur  has  forsaken  my 
tongue.  It  is  all  over! 


The  Old  Game 


II:   A  Backward  Glance 

from  a  Hillock  of 

Abstinence 


The  Old  Game 

A  Backward  Glance  from  a 
Hillock  of  Abstinence 

0 IKING  back  at  the  old  game  from  this 
Hock  of  abstinence — it  is  not  an  emi- 
nence   like    those   occupied    by   the 
twelve  and  fifteen  year  boys — looking  back 
at  the  old  game  from  this  slight  elevation, 
it  is  perhaps  excusable  for  a  man  who  put  in 
twenty  years  at  the  old  game  to  set  the  old 
game  off  against  the  new  game  and  make 
up  a  debit  and  credit  account  just  for  the 
fun  of  it. 

Just  for  the  fun  of  it!  My  kind  of 
drinking  was  always  for  the  fun  of  it — 
for  the  fun  that  came  with  it  and  out  of 
it  and  was  in  it — and  for  no  other  reason. 
I  was  no  sot  and  no  souse.  All  the  drinks 
I  took  were  for  convivial  purposes  solely, 
except  on  occasional  mornings  when  a  too 


16         The  Old  Game 

convivial  evening  demanded  a  next  morn- 
ing conniver  in  the  way  of  a  cocktail  or  a 
frappe,  or  a  brandy-and-soda,  for  purposes 
of  encouragement  and  to  help  get  the  sand 
out  of  the  wheels. 

Wherefore,  what  have  I  personally 
gained  by  quitting  and  what  have  I  per- 
sonally lost?  How  does  the  account  stand? 
Is  it  worth  while  or  not?  Is  there  anything 
in  convivial  drinking  that  is  too  precious 
and  too  pleasant  to  be  sacrificed  for  what- 
ever pleasures  or  rewards  there  are  in 
abstinence?  What  are  the  big  equations? 
These  are  questions  that  naturally  occur 
in  a  consideration  of  the  subject;  and  these 
are  the  questions  I  shall  try  to  answer, 
answering  them  entirely  from  my  own  ex- 
perience and  judging  them  from  my  own 
viewpoint,  leaving  the  application  of  my 
conclusions  to  those  who  care  to  apply 
them  to  their  own  individual  cases. 

It  takes  two  years  for  a  man  who  has 
been  a  convivial  drinker  to  get  any  sort  of 
proper  perspective  on  both  sides  of  the 
proposition.  Three  years  is  better,  and  five 
years,  I  should  say,  about  right.  Still,  after 


A  Backward  Glance     17 

three  years  and  a  half  I  think  I  can  draw 
some  conclusions  that  may  have  a  certain 
general  application — though,  as  I  have 
said,  I  make  no  pretense  of  applying  them 
generally.  So  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge, 
a  man  who  has  been  a  more  or  less  sincere 
drinker  for  twenty  years  does  not  arrive  at 
a  point  before  two  years  of  abstinence 
where  he  can  take  an  impartial  and  non- 
alcoholic survey. 

At  first  he  is  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
the  new  convert,  fired  with  zeal  and  con- 
siderable of  a  Pharisee.  Also,  he  is  inhab- 
ited by  the  lingering  thoughts  of  what  he 
has  renounced — the  fun  and  the  frolic  of 
it;  and  he  has  set  himself  aside,  in  a  good 
measure,  from  the  friends  he  has  made  in 
the  twenty  years  of  joyousness. 


The  Old  Game 


III:  Getting  the  Alcohol 

Out  of  One's 

System 


The  Old  Game 

Getting  the  Alcohol  Out  of 
One^s  System 

ACIENTISTwho  has  made  a  study 
3f  the  subject  told  me,  early  in  my 
water-wagoning,  that  it  takes  eigh- 
teen months  for  a  man  to  get  the  alcohol  en- 
tirely out  of  his  system — provided,  of 
course,  he  has  been  a  reasonably  consistent 
consumer  of  it  for  a  period  of  years.  I 
think  that  is  correct.  Of  course  he  did  not 
mean — nor  do  I — that  the  alcohol  actually 
remains  in  one's  system,  but  that  the  sub- 
acute  effects  remain — that  the  system  is  not 
entirely  reorganized  on  the  new  basis  be- 
fore that  time;  that  the  renovation  is  not 
complete. 

I  do  not  know  exactly  how  to  phrase  it; 
but,  as  nearly  as  I  can  express  it,  the  con- 
dition amounts  to  this:  After  a  man  has 
been  a  reasonably  steady  drinker  for  a 


22         The  Old  Game 

period  of  years,  and  quits  drinking,  there 
remain  within  him  mental  and  some  physi- 
cal alcoholic  tendencies.  These  are  acute 
for  the  earlier  stages,  and  gradually  come 
to  be  almost  subconscious — that  is,  though 
there  is  no  physical  alcoholization  of  his 
body,  the  mental  alcoholization  has  not  de- 
parted. I  do  not  mean  that  his  mind  or 
mental  powers  are  in  any  way  affected  to 
their  detriment.  What  I  do  mean  is  that 
there  remains  in  every  man  a  remembrance, 
the  ghost  of  a  desire,  the  haunting  thoughts 
of  how  good  a  certain  kind  of  a  drink 
would  taste,  and  a  regret  for  joys  of  com- 
panionship with  one's  fellows  in  the  old 
way  and  in  the  old  game,  which  takes  time 
— and  a  good  deal  of  time — to  eradicate. 

It  becomes  a  sort  of  state  of  mind.  The 
body  does  not  crave  liquor.  All  that  is 
past  There  is  no  actual  desire  for  it. 
Indeed,  the  thought  of  again  taking  a  drink 
may  be  physically  repugnant;  but  there  is 
a  sort  of  phantom  of  renounced  good  times 
that  hangs  round  and  worries  and  obtrudes 
in  blue  hours  and  lonesome  hours  and  let- 
down hours — a  persistent,  insistent  sort  of 


One^s  System          23 

ghost-thought  that  flits  across  the  mind 
from  time  to  time  and  stimulates  the  what's- 
the-use  portion  of  a  man's  thinking  appa- 
ratus into  active,  personal  inquiry,  based 
on  the  dum  vivimus,  vivamus  proposition. 

I  know  this  will  be  disputed  by  many 
men  who  have  quit  drinking  and  who  beat 
themselves  on  the  chests  and  boast:  "I 
never  think  of  it!  Never,  I  assure  you! 
I  quit;  and  after  a  few  days  the  thought 
of  drinking  never  entered  my  mind."  I 
have  only  one  reply  for  these  persons;  and, 
phrasing  it  as  politely  as  I  can,  I  say  to 
them  that  they  are  all  liars.  Moreover, 
they  are  the  worst  sort  of  liars,  for  they 
not  only  lie  to  others  but  commit  the  useless 
folly  of  lying  to  themselves.  They  may 
think  they  do  not  lie;  but  they  do. 

There  is  not  one  of  them — not  one — who 
is  not  visited  by  the  ghost  of  good  times, 
the  wraith  of  former  fun,  now  and  then; 
or  one  who  does  not  wonder  whether  it  is 
worth  the  struggle  and  speculate  on  what 
the  harm  would  be  if  he  took  a  few  for 
old  time's  sake.  The  mental  yearn  comes 
back  occasionally  long  after  the  physical 


24          The  Old  Game 

yearn  has  vanished.  My  compliments  to 
you  strong-minded  and  iron-willed  citizens 
who  quit  and  forget — but  you  don't!  You 
may  quit,  but  it  is  months  and  months  be- 
fore you  forget. 

The  ghost  appears  and  reappears;  but 
gradually,  as  time  goes  on,  the  visits  are 
less  frequent — and  finally  they  cease.  The 
ghost  has  given  you  up  for  a  bad  job.  If 
any  man  has  quit  and  has  stuck  it  out  for 
two  years  he  can  be  reasonably  sure  he  will 
not  be  haunted  much  after  he  enters  his 
third  year. 

Mental  impressions  and  desires  last  far 
longer  than  physical  ones,  and  by  that  time 
the  mind  has  been  reorganized  along  the 
new  lines.  Then  comes  the  sure  knowledge 
that  it  is  all  right;  and  after  that  time  any 
man  who  has  fought  his  fight  and  falls  can 
be  classed  only  as  an  idiot.  What,  in  the 
name  of  Bacchus,  is  there  to  compensate  a 
man  in  drinking  again — after  he  has  won 
his  fight — for  all  the  troubles  and  rigors  of 
the  battle  from  which  he  has  emerged  vic- 
torious? If  he  had  nerve  enough  to  go 
through  his  novitiate  and  get  his  degree, 


One^s  System  25 

why  should  he  deliberately  return  to  the 
position  he  voluntarily  abandoned?  What 
has  he  been  righting  for?  Why  did  he 
begia? 


The  Old  Game 


IV:    Those  Who  Have 
Suffered  in  Vain 


The  Old  Game 

Those  H^ho  Have  Suffered 
in  Fain 

OWING  to  a  worldwide  acquaintance 
among  men  who  drink  my  personal 
determination  to  quit  still  excites 
the  patronizing  inquiry,  "Still  on  the 
wagon?"  when  I  meet  old  friends.  That 
used  to  make  me  angry,  but  it  does  not  any 
more.  I  say,  "Yes!"  take  my  mineral  water 
and  pass  on  to  other  things.  But  the  posi- 
tion of  those  who  quit  and  go  back  to  it, 
and  seek  to  excuse  the  return  by  saying,  "Oh, 
I  only  stopped  to  see  whether  I  could.  I 
found  it  was  easy ;  so  I  began  again !" — now 
is  that  not  the  sublimation  of  piffle?  The 
fact  that  any  man  who  salves  himself  with 
this  sort  of  statement — and  hundreds  do — 
did  go  back  does  not  prove  that  he  could 
quit,  but  that  he  could  not! 


30         The  Old  Game 

I  can  understand  why  a  man,  having 
tried  both  sides  of  the  game,  should  con- 
clude that  the  rigors  and  restraints  of  not 
drinking  overbalance  the  compensations 
and  take  up  the  practice  again;  but  I  can- 
not understand  why  a  man  should  be  so 
great  a  hypocrite  with  himself  as  to  assign 
a  reason  like  that  for  his  renewal  of  the 
habit.  No  man  quits  just  to  see  whether 
he  can  quit.  Every  man  quits  because  he 
personally  thinks  he  ought  to  quit — for 
whatever  his  personal  reason  may  be.  And 
he  begins  again  because  he  concludes  the 
game  is  not  worth  playing,  which  means 
that  he  is  not  able  to  play  it — not  that  it 
lacks  merit. 

When  you  come  to  sum  it  all  up  general 
reasons  for  drinking  are  as  absurd  as  gen- 
eral reasons  for  not  drinking.  It  is  entirely 
an  individual  proposition.  I  concluded  it 
was  a  bad  thing  for  me  to  drink.  I  know 
now  I  was  right.  But — and  here  is  the 
point — it  may  be  a  good  thing  for  my 
neighbor  t©  drink.  He  must  judge  of  that 
himself.  Personally  I  cannot  see  that  it 
is  a  good  thing  for  any  man  to  drink;  but 


Suffered  in  Vain        31 

I  am  no  judge.  I  am  influenced  in  my  con- 
clusions, not  by  a  broad  view  of  the  sit- 
uation as  it  applies  to  my  fellows  but  by 
an  intensely  narrow  view  as  it  applies  to 
myself.  Hence  what  I  have  concluded 
in  the  matter  may  be  uncharitable — may 
smack  of  Puritanism  and  may  not  be  sup- 
ported by  general  facts;  but  I  am  writing 
about  my  own  experiences,  not  those  of 
any  other  person  whatever. 

My  occupation  takes  me  to  all  parts  of 
the  world  and  has  for  twenty-five  years.  It 
has  caused  me  to  make  friends  with  all 
sorts  of  people  in  all  sorts  of  places  and  in 
all  sorts  of  circumstances.  I  early  dis- 
covered that,  as  I  was  a  gregarious  person 
and  intent  on  doing  the  best  for  myself 
that  I  possibly  could,  it  was  necessary  for 
me  to  cultivate  the  friendship  of  men  of 
affairs;  and  it  became  apparent  to  me  that 
many  men  of  affairs  take  an  occasional 
drink.  Naturally  I  took  an  occasional 
drink  with  them,  having  no  prejudices  in 
the  matter  and  being  of  open  mind.  I  am 
big  and  husky,  and  mix  well ;  and  the  result 
was  I  acquired  as  extensive  a  line  of  con- 


32         The  Old  Game 

vivial  acquaintances,  across  this  country 
and  across  Europe,  as  any  person  of  your 
acquaintance.  To  some  extent  my  friend- 
ship with  these  men  was  predicated  on 
having  a  few  drinks  with  them.  I  fell  in 
with  their  ways  or  they  fell  in  with  mine; 
and  as  my  association  in  almost  every  city, 
among  the  men  with  whom  I  worked  and 
the  men  I  met,  is  based  largely  on  enter- 
tainment of  one  kind  or  another — generally 
with  some  alcohol  in  it — my  life  was  or- 
dered that  way  for  two  decades.  And  I 
had  a  heap  of  fun.  There  was  no  sottish- 
ness  about  it,  no  solitary  drinking,  no  drink- 
ing for  drink's  sake,  no  drunkenness.  It 
was  all  jollity  and  really  innocent  enough 
— a  case  of  good  fellows  having  a  good 
time  together. 

However,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  rum 
consumed  one  way  and  another.  Then 
three  and  a  half  years  ago,  after  a  long 
caucus  with  myself,  I  quit.  I  decided  I 
had  played  that  game  long  enough  and 
would  begin  to  play  another.  It  may  be 
I  did  not  know  or  figure  out  as  concretely 
as  I  have  figured  out  since  just  what  I 


Suffered  in  Fain       33 

was  doing  when  I  quit.  It  may  be!  Still, 
that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  I 
quit  and  I  have  stayed  quit — and  I  have 
quit  forever.  So  all  that  is  coming  to  me  in 
the  premises  is  based  on  my  own  determina- 
tion, as  all  has  been  that  has  come,  and  I 
have  no  complaints  to  make;  and  if  I  made 
any  I  should  expect  to  get  a  punch  in  the 
eye  for  making  them — and  deserve  one. 

Passing  over  the  physical  and  mental 
sides  of  the  fight — which,  I  may  assure 
you,  were  annoying  enough  to  suit  the  most 
exacting  advocate  of  the  old  policy  of  mor- 
tifying the  flesh  and  disciplining  the  mind 
—there  came  eventually  the  necessity  of 
learning  how  to  keep  in  the  game  on  a 
water  basis — or,  rather,  of  learning  how  to 
keep  in  such  portions  of  the  game  as  seemed 
worth  while  on  a  soft-drink  schedule.  I 
was  too  old  to  form  many  new  ties.  I 
had  accumulated  a  farflung  line  of  drink- 
ing men  as  friends.  They  were  mostly  the 
men  with  whom  association  was  a  pleasure 
—as  in  politics  the  villians  are  always  the 
good  fellows — and  I  did  not  want  to  lose 
them,  however  willing  they  were  to  lose 
me. 


34         The  Old  Game 

There  came,  however,  with  my  mineral- 
water  view,  a  discriminatory  sense  that 
was  not  enjoyed  in  the  highball  period— 
that  is  to  say,  I  found,  observed  with  the 
cold  and  mayhap  critical  eye  of  abstinence, 
that  a  number  of  those  with  whom  I  was 
wont  to  associate  needed  the  softening  glow 
radiated  by  the  liquor  in  me  to  make  them 
as  good  as  I  had  previously  thought  they 
were.  There  were  some  I  found  I  did 
not  miss,  and  more  came  to  the  same  con- 
clusion about  me.  They  were  all  right- 
fine! — when  seen  or  heard  through  ears 
and  eyes  that  had  been  affected  by  the 
genial  charitableness  of  a  couple  or  three 
cocktails;  but  when  seen  or  heard  with  no 
adventitious  appliances  on  my  part  save 
ginger  ale  they  were  rather  depressing — 
and  I  am  quite  sure  they  held  the  same 
views  about  me. 


The  Old  Game 


:  A  Thirsty  Nation '  s 
Need 


The  Old  Game 

A  Thirsty  Nation  9s  Need 

SO  I  sloughed  off  a  good  many  and  a 
good  many  sloughed  off  me;  and  a 
working  basis  was  secured.  At  first  I 
tried  to  keep  along  with  all  the  old  crowd, 
but  that  was  impossible  in  two  ways.  I 
never  realized  until  after  I  was  on  the 
water-wagon  what  extremes  in  piffle  I  used 
to  think  was  witty  conversation,  and  they 
discovered  speedily  that  my  non-alcoholic 
communications  fitted  in  neither  with  the 
spirit  nor  the  spirits  of  the  occasion. 

The  crying  need  of  the  society  of  this 
country  is  a  non-alcoholic  beverage  that 
can  be  drunk  in  quantities  similar  to  the 
quantities  in  which  highballs  can  be  drunk. 
A  man  who  is  a  good,  handy  drinker  can 
lap  up  half  a  dozen  highballs  in  the  course 
of  an  evening — and  many  lap  up  consid- 
erably more  than  that  number  and  hold 


38         The  Old  Game 

them  comfortably;  but  the  man  does  not 
exist  who  can  drink  half  of  that  bulk  of 
water  or  ginger  ale,  or  of  any  of  the  first- 
aids-to-the-non-drinkers,  and  not  be  both 
flooded  and  foundered.  The  human  stom- 
ach will  easily  accommodate  numerous 
seidels  of  beer,  poured  in  at  regular  or 
irregular  intervals;  but  the  human  stomach 
cannot  and  will  not  take  care  of  a  similar 
number  of  seidels  of  water,  or  of  any  other 
liquid  that  comes  in  the  guise  of  stuff  that 
neither  cheers  nor  inebriates.  I  have  never 
looked  up  the  scientific  reason  for  this.  I 
state  it  as  a  fact,  proved  by  my  own  at- 
tempts to  accomplish  with  water  what  I 
used  easily  to  do  with  highballs,  Pilsner 
and  other  naughty  substances. 

The  reformer  boys  will  tell  you  there  is 
no  special  need  for  such  a  drink;  that  water 
is  all-sufficient.  Of  course  everybody 
knows  the  reformer  boys  think  the  world 
is  going  to  hell  in  a  hanging  basket  unless 
each  person  in  it  comports  himself  and 
herself  as  the  reformer  boy  dictates!  But 
it  is  not  so.  And  it  is  so  that  the  social 
intercourse,  the  interchange  of  ideas  be- 


A  Nation  V  Need       39 

tween  man  and  man,  both  in  this  country 
and  in  every  other  country,  is  often  predi- 
cated on  drinking  as  a  concomitant. 

We  may  bewail  this,  but  we  cannot  dodge 
it.  Hence  any  man  who  has  been  used  to 
the  normal  society  of  his  fellows  along  the 
lines  by  which  I  became  used  to  that  so- 
ciety, and  along  the  lines  by  which  ninety 
per  cent  of  the  men  in  this  country  become 
used  to  that  society,  must  make  a  bluff  at 
drinking  something  now  and  then.  If  he 
is  not  a  partaker  of  alcohol  he  has  his 
troubles  in  rinding  a  medium  for  his  imbib- 
ing, unless  he  goes  the  entire  limit  and  cuts 
out  the  society  of  all  friends  who  drink, 
which  leaves  him  in  a  rather  sequestrated 
and  senseless  position — not,  of  course,  that 
there  are  not  plenty  of  interesting  men  who 
do  not  drink,  but  that  so  many  interesting 
men  do. 

So  the  problem  of  a  non-drinker  resolves 
itself  to  this:  How  can  he  continue  in  the 
companionship  of  the  men  he  likes,  and 
who  possibly  like  him,  and  not  drink?  How 
can  he  remain  a  social  animal,  with  the 
fellowship  of  his  kind,  and  stay  on  the 


40         The  Old  Game 

water-wagon?  Well,  it  is  a  difficult  prob- 
lem, especially  for  persons  situated  as  I  was, 
who  had  spent  twenty  years  accumulating  a 
large  assortment  of  acquaintances  who  used 
the  stuff  in  moderation,  but  with  added  so- 
cial zest  to  their  goings  and  comings. 

When  a  man  first  stops  drinking  he  is 
likely  to  become  censorious.  That  starts 
him  badly.  Also  he  is  likely  to  become 
serious.  That  marks  him  down  fifteen 
points  out  of  a  possible  thirty.  He  flocks 
by  himself,  thinking  high  thoughts  about 
his  purity  of  purpose,  his  vast  wisdom,  his 
acute  realization  of  the  dangers  that  for- 
merly beset  his  path  and  now  beset  the  path 
of  all  those  who  are  not  walking  side  by  side 
and  in  close  communion  with  him.  He 
pins  medals  all  over  himself,  pats  himself 
on  the  chest,  and  is  much  better  than  his 
kind. 

Then  he  wakes  up — unless  he  is  a  chump 
and  a  Pharisee.  If  he  is  one  or  both  of 
those  he  never  wakes  up,  but  soon  passes 
beyond  the  pale.  When  he  wakes  up — as- 
suming he  has  intelligence  enough  to  do 
that — he  gets  an  acute  realization  that  if  he 


A  Nation's  Need       41 

holds  off  in  that  manner  much  longer  even 
the  elevator  boys  will  not  speak  to  him; 
and  he  comes  to  a  point  where  he  finds  out 
that  the  wisest  of  the  wise  saws  is  that  a  man 
who  is  in  Rome  should  do  as  the  Romans 
do,  with  suth  modifications  as  his  personal 
circumstance^  may  demand.  Personally  I 
found  the  most  advantageous  course  to 
pursue  was  to  drop  the  highfalutin  air  of 
extreme  virtue  that  oppressed  me  and  de- 
pressed my  friends  for  the  first  few  months 
and  consider  the  whole  thing  as  a  joke. 


The  Old  Game 


VI:  The  Jeers  of  the 
Smart  Alecs 


The  Old  Game 

The  Jeers  of  the  Smart  Alecs 

I  REFUSED  to  take  it  seriously.  It  was 
in  reality  the  most  serious  thing  in  the 
world;  but  that  was  inside.  Outside  it 
was  a  thing  to  josh,  to  laugh  over,  to  stand 
chaffing  about — I  listened  to  interminable 
comments,  all  couched  in  the  same  form — 
but,  nevertheless,  a  thing  to  be  held  to 
grimly  and  firmly.  So  I  went  along  when- 
ever I  had  a  chance.  After  the  ghosts 
ceased  haunting  and  the  desire  had  gone  I 
found  I  could  cheer  up  on  skillfully  ab- 
sorbed mineral  water.  I  am  free  to  say  that 
a  good  deal  of  the  conversation  I  heard 
bored  me  a  heap ;  but  I  did  not  let  on.  And 
the  result  has  been  that  I  am  no  longer 
forced  to  flock  by  myself,  but  can  break  into 
almost  any  company  of  good  fellows  and  be 
as  good  a  fellow  as  any  of  them,  via  the 
ginger-ale  or  mineral-water  process  of  con- 
viviality. 


46          The  Old  Game 

All  the  asses  are  not  solidungulate  quad- 
rupeds— a  good  many  of  them  belong  to  the 
genus  homo.  These  are  found  in  every  cen- 
ter of  population  and  are  the  boys  who 
never  cease  wondering  how  it  is  that  any 
man  can  or  does  do  anything  they  them- 
selves do  not  do,  and  continually  comment 
thereon.  Ordinarily  when  a  man  of  my 
type  quits  drinking  the  fact  is  accepted  after 
the  probationary  period  has  passed,  and  no 
further  comment  is  made  on  it.  Not  so 
with  the  asinine  contingent.  They  have  the 
same  patter  to  prattle  unceasingly  about  it. 
They  have  the  same ,  comment,  the  same 
bromides  to  get  off,  the  same  sneers  to  sneer 
and  the  same  jeers  to  jeer.  If  there  was  no 
other  reason — and  there  are  a  hundred- 
why  I  shall  not  do  any  more  drinking,  I 
shall  never  taste  another  drop  just  to  show 
these  fools  what  fools  they  are  when  they 
run  up  against  a  real  determination. 

It  took  time  to  get  into  this  water-cheer- 
ful stage — a  good  deal  of  time,  a  good  deal 
of  determination,  a  good  deal  of  maneuver- 
ing; and  it  meant  the  overlooking  of  many 
things  that  did  not  appeal  to  me,  as  well  as 


Smart  Alecs  41 

considerable  charity  on  the  part  of  the  folks 
with  whom  I  desired  to  remain  friendly- 
more  on  their  part  than  on  mine,  I  am  sure. 

However,  it  has  worked  out  reasonably 
well;  and  as  I  have  tried  it  in  New  York, 
in  Washington,  in  San  Francisco  and  Bos- 
ton, and  in  most  cities  between,  in  London 
and  Paris  and  Berlin,  and  in  other  portions 
of  the  globe  where  I  formerly  performed 
under  the  other  schedule,  I  think  I  am  safe 
in  saying  that  it  can  be  done  if  one  sets  his 
mind  to  it — that  is,  a  non-drinker  need  not 
necessarily  be  a  hermit.  Of  course  he  can 
find  plenty  of  non-drinkers  with  whom  to 
associate  if  he  makes  the  search;  but,  and 
it  saddens  me  to  say  it,  many  of  the  non- 
drinking  classes  are  not  so  interesting  as 
they  might  be. 

However,  that  is  only  one  phase  of  it — 
an  important  phase,  but  not  the  only  one. 
Doubtless  it  will  seem  erroneous  to  many 
persons,  who  have  not  been  accustomed  to 
the  sort  of  relaxation  that  full-lived  men 
take,  to  say  this  is  important;  and  I  freely 
admit  that  the  highbrow  basis  is  somewhat 
different  from  the  highball  basis. 


48          The  Old  Game 

I  grant  that  seekers  after  conversation 
about  dull  and  academic  subjects  may  not 
find  that  conversation  at  a  social  gathering 
sought  for  relaxation  after  the  day's  work 
is  over;  but  not  all  conversation  of  the  kind 
most  red-blooded  and  live  men  who  do 
things  crave  consists  of  joining  in  barber- 
shop chords  of:  "How  dry  I  am!  How 
dry  I  am !  Nobudee  knows  how  dry  I  am !" 


The  Old  Game 


VII:   More  Time  for 
Other  Things 


The  Old  Game 


More  Time  for  Other  Things 

AD,  there  is  this  great  advantage: 
Your  resources  for  the  entertainment 
of  yourself  are  vastly  developed 
when  you  do  not  drink.  When  you  do  drink, 
about  all  you  do  is  drink — that  is,  the  usual 
formula,  day  by  day,  is  to  get  through  work 
and  then  go  somewhere  where  there  are  fel- 
lows of  your  kind  and  have  a  few.  Now 
when  you  do  not  drink  you  find  there  are 
other  things  that  occur  to  you  as  worth 
while.  It  is  not  necessary  to  hurry  to  the 
club  or  elsewhere  to  meet  the  crowd  and 
listen  to  the  newest  story,  or  hear  the  com- 
ment on  the  day's  doings,  punctuated  by  the 
regular  tapping  of  the  bell  for  the  waiter 
and  the  pleasing:  "What'll  it  be,  boys?" 
You  do  that  now  and  then,  but  you  do  not 
do  it  every  day. 

After  mature  consideration  of  the  sub- 


52          The  Old  Game 

ject  I  have  concluded  that  the  greatest,  the 
most  satisfactory,  the  finest  attribute  of  a 
non-alcoholic  life  is  the  time  it  gives  you 
to  do  non-alcholic  things.  Time!  That  is 
the  largest  benefit — time  to  read,  to  think,  to 
get  out-of-doors,  to  see  pictures,  to  go  to 
plays,  to  meet  and  mingle  with  new  people, 
to  do  your  own  work  in.  A  man  who  has 
the  convivial-drinking  habit  is  put  to  it  on 
occasions  to  find  time  for  anything  but  con- 
viviality aside  from  his  regular  occupation. 
It  seems  imperative  to  him  that  he  shall  get 
where  the  crowd  is,  and  stay  there.  He 
might  miss  something — a  drink  maybe,  or 
two,  or  a  laugh,  or  a  yarn,  or  the  pleas- 
ures of  association  with  folks  he  likes. 
These  are  important  when  visualized  alco- 
holically.  They  make  up  the  most  of  that 
kind  of  a  life. 

Do  not  understand  that  I  am  deprecating 
these  pleasures.  I  am  not.  I  have  already 
explained  how  strenuously  I  worked  out  a 
program  that  enables  me  to  enjoy  them  now 
and  then;  but  the  fact  that  I  have  quit 
drinking  makes  them  incidental  to  the  gen- 
eral scheme  instead  of  the  whole  scheme. 


More  Time  53 

It  gives  me  an  opportunity  to  pick  and 
choose  a  bit.  It  relieves  me  of  the  necessity 
of  being  at  the  same  places  at  the  same  time 
every  afternoon  or  evening.  Whereas  I  used 
to  be  the  boss  and  John  Barleycorn  the  fore- 
man, I  have  now  discharged  John  and  am 
both  boss  and  foreman;  and  I  run  the  game 
to  suit  myself  and  have  time  for  other 
things. 

Let  me  impress  that  on  you — the  glory 
and  gladness  of  time!  It  requires  rather 
persistent  application  to  be  a  good  fellow. 
One  cannot  do  much  else.  However,  when 
a  man  has  arrived  at  that  stage  where  he 
can  retain  at  least  a  portion  of  his  good 
fellowship  and  also  can  be  two  or  three  of 
the  other  kinds  of  a  worth-while  fellow — to 
himself,  at  least — he  has  gained  on  the  old 
gang  by  about  a  hundred  per  cent 

As  it  is  now,  no  chums  come  shouting  in 
to  urge  me  to  go  and  have  one;  nobody 
drops  round  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
to  hurry  me  along  to  the  favorite  table  at 
the  club;  nobody  suggests  about  seven 
o'clock  that  we  all  'phone  home  and  stay 
down  and  have  dinner  together;  the  old 


54          The  Old  Game 

plan  of  having  a  luncheon  that  lasts  an 
hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours  in  the  best 
part  of  the  day  is  rarely  broached.  There 
are  few  telephone  calls  after  dinner  urging 
an  immediate  descent  on  a  gathering  where 
there  is  something  coming  off — all  these 
things  are  left  to  my  choice  and  are  not 
taken  as  a  matter  of  usual  procedure,  pred- 
icated on  the  circumstances  of  the  plan  of 
living. 

A  non-drinking  man  is  the  master  of  his 
own  time.  If  he  wants  sociability  he  can 
go  and  get  it,  up  to  such  limits  as  he  per- 
sonally can  attain  for  himself  in  his  water- 
consuming  capacity.  A  drinking  man  is 
not  master  of  his  time.  He  may  think  he 
is,  but  he  is  not.  He  is  the  creature  of  a 
habit  that  may  be  harmless,  but  which  sure- 
ly is  insistent;  and  the  habit  dictates  what 
he  shall  do  with  his  leisure. 

Time!  Why,  such  new  vistas  of  what  can 
be  done  with  time  that  was  wasted  in  for- 
mer years  have  opened  before  me  that  time 
seems  to  me  the  greatest  luxury  in  the  world 
— time  that  was  formerly  wasted  and  now 
is  used!  I  hope  that  does  not  sound  prig- 


More  Time  55 

gish.  I  have  tried  to  show  that  I  value 
highly  the  privilege  of  associating  with  my 
fellows,  and  that  I  like  their  ways  and  their 
talk  and  their  company.  What  I  mean  by 
this  paean  to  time  is  that  I  can  have  com- 
pany in  a  modified  measure,  if  I  choose; 
and  that  I  can  and  do  have  other  things  that 
no  man  who  has  a  daily  drinking  habit  can 
or  does  have. 


The  Old  Game 


VIII:   Leisure  Put  to 
Good  Uses 


The  Old  Game 


Leisure  Put  to  Good  Uses 

TAKE  books — though  books  may  not 
be  a  fair  test  of  time  employed  in 
my  case,  for  I  always  have  read 
books  in  great  numbers — but  take  books: 
In  the  past  three  years  and  a  half  I  have 
read  as  many  books — real  books — as  I  read 
in  the  ten  years  preceding.  I  have  read 
books  I  was  always  intending  to  read,  but 
never  got  round  to.  I  have  kept  up  with 
the  new  good  ones  and  have  helped  myself 
to  several  items  of  interesting  discovery  and 
knowledge  that  in  the  old  days  would  have 
been  known  about  only  through  newspaper 
reports.  I  have  developed  a  good  many 
half-facts  that  were  in  my  mind.  I  have 
classified  and  arranged  a  lot  of  scattering  in- 
formation that  had  seeped  into  me  notwith- 
standing my  engagements  with  the  boys. 
I  have  had  time  to  go  to  see  some  pic- 


60          The  Old  Game 

tures.  I  have  had  time  to  hear  some  music. 
I  have  had  time  to  visit  a  lot  of  interesting 
places,  such  as  great  industrial  concerns  and 
factories,  which  I  always  intended  to  see 
but  never  quite  reached.  I  have  had  time 
to  make  a  few  investigations  on  my  own  ac- 
count. I  have  met  and  talked  to  a  large 
number  of  people  who  were  formerly  out- 
side my  range  of  vision.  And  I  have  done 
better  work  in  my  own  line — I  have  more 
time  for  it. 

If  I  have  lost  any  friends  they  were 
friends  whose  loss  does  not  bother  me.  I 
find  that  all  the  true-blue  chaps,  the  worth- 
while ones,  though  they  look — in  most  in- 
stances— on  my  non-drinking  idiosyncrasy 
with  amused  tolerance,  have  not  lost  any  re- 
spect or  affection  for  me,  and  are  just  as 
true  blue  as  they  formerly  were.  Most  of 
them  drink,  but  I  fancy  some  of  them  wish 
they  did  not;  and  none  of  them  holds  my 
strange  behavior  up  against  me. 

To  be  sure,  they  often  have  their  little 
gatherings  without  me;  but  that  is  not  be- 
cause they  do  not  like  me  any  the  less,  and 
is  because  I  do  not  happen,  in  my  new  role, 


Leisure  61 

to  fit  in.  There  are  times,  you  know,  when 
even  the  most  enthusiastic  ginger-ale  spe- 
cialist is  not  persona  grata.  We  have 
reached  a  common  basis  of  understanding. 
The  real  man  is  tolerant.  Intolerance  is  the 
vice  of  the  narrow  man. 

Now,  then,  we  come  to  the  real  question, 
which  is:  With  our  society  organized  as  it 
is,  with  men  such  men  as  they  are,  with 
conditions  that  surround  life  as  it  is  organ- 
ized, with  things  as  they  stand  to-day — is 
it  worth  while  to  drink  moderately,  or  is  it 
not?  The  answer,  based  solely  on  my  own 
experience,  is  that  it  is  not.  Looking  at 
the  matter  from  all  its  angles  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  best  thing  I  ever  did  for 
myself  was  to  quit  drinking.  I  will  go  fur- 
ther than  that  and  say  it  is  my  unalterable 
conviction  that  alcohol,  in  any  form,  as  a 
beverage  never  did  anything  for  any  man 
that  he  would  not  have  been  better  without. 

I  can  now  sit  back  and  contrast  the  old 
game  with  the  new.  The  comparisons  fall 
under  two  general  heads — physical  and 
mental.  The  physical  gain  is  so  obvious 
that  even  those  who  have  not  experienced 


62         The  Old  Game 

it  admit  it,  and  those  who  have  experienced 
it  comment  on  it  as  some  miracle  of  health 
that  has  been  attained.  Any  man — I  do 
not  care  who  he  is — who  was  the  sort  of  a 
drinker  I  was,  who  will  stop  drinking  long 
enough  to  get  cooled  out  will  feel  so  much 
better  in  every  way  that  he  will  be  hard  put 
to  it  to  give  a  reason  for  ever  beginning 
again. 

Take  my  own  case:  I  was  fat,  wheezy, 
uric-acidy,  gouty,  rheumatic — not  organ- 
ically bad,  but  symptomatically  inferior. 
I  was  never  quite  normal — no  man  is  nor- 
mal who  has  a  few  drinks  each  day,  though 
most  men  boast  they  never  were  under  the 
influence  of  liquor  in  their  lives,  and  all  that 
sort  of  tommyrot — and  never  quite  up  to 
the  mark. 

Now  I  weigh  one  hundred  eighty-five 
pounds,  which  is  my  normal  weight,  for 
that  is  what  I  weighed  when  I  was  twenty- 
one;  and  I  have  not  varied  five  pounds  in 
more  than  two  years.  I  used  to  weigh  two 
hundred  and  fifty,  which  was  the  result  of 
our  friend  Pilsner  beer  and  his  accomplices. 
All  the  gouty,  rheumatic,  wheezy  symptoms 


Leisure  63 

are  gone.  If  there  is  anything  the  matter 
with  me  the  best  doctors  in  these  United 
States  cannot  discover  what  it  is.  My  eye 
is  clear,  instead  of  somewhat  bleary.  I 
have  dropped  off  every  physical  burden  and 
infirmity  I  had,  and  I  am  in  the  pink  of 
condition.  I  have  no  fear  of  heart,  kidneys, 
or  of  any  other  organ.  I  have  no  pains, 
no  aches,  and  no  head  in  the  morning.  I 
sleep  as  a  well  man  should  sleep  and  I  eat 
as  a  well  man  should  eat.  I  am  forty-five 
years  old  and  I  feel  as  if  I  were  twenty — 
and  I  am,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
physically. 

So  much  for  that  side  of  it.  Mentally  I 
have  a  clearer,  saner,  wider  view  of  life. 
I  am  afflicted  by  none  of  the  desultoriness 
superinduced  by  alcohol.  I  do  not  need  a 
bracer  to  get  me  going  or  a  hooker  to  keep 
me  under  way.  I  find,  now  that  I  know 
the  other  side  of  it,  that  the  chief  mental 
effect  of  alcohol,  taken  as  I  took  it,  is  to 
induce  a  certain  scattering  and  casualness  of 
mind.  Also,  it  induces  a  lack  of  definite- 
ness  of  view  and  a  notable  failure  of  inten- 


64         The  Old  Game 

sive  effort.  A  man  evades  and  scatters  and 
exaggerates  and  makes  loose  statements 
when  he  drinks. 


The  Old  Game 


IX:  Alcohol  and  the 
Toll  it  Takes 


The  Old  Game 


Alcohol  and  the  Toll  It  Takes 


A~D  let  me  say  another  thing:  One  of 
the  reasons  I  quit  was  because  I  no- 
ticed I  was  going  to  funerals  of  ten- 
er  than  usual  —  funerals  of  friends  who  had 
been  living  the  same  sort  of  lives  for  theirs 
as  I  had  been  living  for  mine.  They  began 
dropping  off  with  Bright's  disease  and 
other  affections  superinduced  by  alcohol; 
and  I  took  stock  of  that  feature  of  it  rather 
earnestly.  The  funerals  have  not  stopped. 
They  have  been  more  frequent  in  the  past 
three  years  than  in  the  three  years  preced- 
ing —  all  good  fellows,  happy,  convivial 
souls;  but  now  dead.  Some  of  them 
thought  that  I  was  foolish  to  quit  too! 

And  there  are  a  few  cases  of  hardening 
arteries  I  know  about,  and  a  considerable 
amount  of  gout  and  rheumatism,  and  some 
other  ills,  among  the  gay  boys  who  japed 


68         The  Old  Game 

at  me  for  quitting.  Gruesome,  is  it  not? 
And  God  forbid  that  I  should  cast  up !  But 
if  you  quit  it  in  time  there  will  be  no  pro- 
duction of  albumin  and  sugar,  no  high 
blood  pressure,  no  swollen  big  toes  and  stiff- 
ened joints. 

If  health  is  a  desideratum,  one  way  to  at- 
tain a  lot  of  it  is  to  cut  out  the  booze.  The 
old  game  makes  for  fun,  but  it  takes  toll — 
and  never  fails! 

I  have  tried  it  both  ways.  I  can  see  how 
a  man  who  never  took  any  liquor  cannot 
understand  much  of  what  I  have  written, 
and  I  can  see  how  a  man  who  has  the  same 
sort  of  habits  I  had  can  think  me  absurd  in 
my  conclusions;  but  a  man  who  has  played 
both  ends  of  it  certainly  has  some  qualifica- 
tions as  a  judge.  And,  as  I  stated,  I  have 
set  down  here  only  my  own  personal  ideas 
on  the  subject. 

As  I  look  at  it  there  is  no  argument.  The 
man  who  does  not  drink  has  all  the  better 
of  the  game. 


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